The Select (20 page)

"It paralyzes," Quinn said. "I thought
you said it was an anesthetic."

"It is. At higher doses it produces
total anesthesia. I'm working on the mechanism for that now, but I
do know it's active in the higher centers as well as the
brainstem." The years seemed to drop away from him as his
enthusiasm grew. "But do you understand what we've got here, Miss
Cleary? A potent general anesthetic that causes complete paralysis
but allows the patient to continue breathing on his own. The
anesthesiologist won't have to intubate and ventilate the patient.
It can be used in every kind of surgery except chest procedures;
there's zero chance of allergic reaction because 9574 is a human
neurohormone—everybody's got their own. And perhaps best of all,
there's no post-anesthesia side effects. You come to in the
recovery room like someone awakening from a nap." He put his hands
on his hips and stared at the bottle like a proud parent. "So.
Those are the properties of the neurohormone you'll be working with
here. What do you think?"

"It sounds almost too good to be
true."

"It does, doesn't it." He
began gesturing excitedly with his hands. "But that's not the whole
of it. It would be almost perfect with just those features, but
it's also completely non-toxic. Its LD
₅₀
—"

"Elldee...?"

"LD
₅₀
," Dr. Emerson said. "You'll learn all about that as we go.
Stands for the lethal dose of a given compound for fifty percent of
the experimental animals. Every drug meant for human use must
register one. For instance, I take the Kleederman Pharmaceuticals
product fenostatin for my cholesterol, a dose of twenty
milli
grams per
day—total. I happen to know that the LD
₅₀
of fenostatin is
twenty
grams
per
kilogram. In other words, if I gave a hundred lab mice a dose of
twenty grams of fenostatin per kilogram of their body weight, fifty
of them would die. That's a good LD
₅₀
. It means that if I became
suicidal and stuffed 70,000 twenty-milligram fenostatin tablets
down my throat, I'd still have only a fifty percent chance of dying
from fenostatin toxicity. Probably rupture my intestines first. But
the wonderful thing about 9574 is that it's even less toxic. We
haven't
found
a
lethal dose yet."

Triumphant, he threw out his arms and
struck the bottle of 9574, sending it skittering toward the end of
the counter. Marguerite the nurse leaped out of her seat, knocking
it over as she lunged for the bottle. She caught it just as it went
off the end and dropped toward the floor. Then she slumped there,
shaking her head, panting as if she had run a race.

"Thank God you caught that,
Marguerite," Dr. Emerson said. He seemed quite upset.

Marguerite straightened and carefully
replaced the vial in its slot on the meds cart.

"Dr. Emerson," she said as she righted
her chair. "That was too close."

"Amen," he said, then turned to Quinn.
"We have precious little of 9574 available. Synthesizing it in
quantities would be a simple matter for a commercial lab, but our
tiny operation down on the third floor is taxed to its limits to
produce what we need here for research purposes. Consequently, we
treat it like gold."

"But who are you using it
on?"

"Why, the Ward C patients, of course.
It's perfect for them."

Quinn was confused. "But why would you
want to paralyze them?"

"It's not so much the paralysis we
want for them," he said. "It's the anesthesia. Most of the Ward C
patients have horrific scarring, thick wads of stiff tissue that
resists movement because it's got minimal elasticity. We use 9574
on them during their physical therapy sessions. It allows the
therapists to stretch their limbs and exercise their joints to
prevent flexion contractures. If left alone, most of them would end
up curled into the fetal position. Without 9574 the pain of
physical therapy would be unendurable."

"But didn't you say the lower dose
paralyzes, and the higher dose anesthetizes? Wouldn't that mean
they're completely paralyzed during therapy?" Quinn was starting to
feel uncomfortable.

Dr. Emerson turned and looked at her
closely. A wry smile worked across his lips.

"You're a quick study, aren't
you."

Quinn was suddenly flustered. Had she
angered him?

"Well, I don't know...I
just—"

"I like that. I like that a lot. Shows
you've been listening. But as it works out, the paralysis with 9574
is a harmless side effect for some of the Ward C patients, and an
absolute necessity for others." He gestured down the hall. "Let me
show you."

They moved the dozen feet or so to the
window and stood looking into Ward C. Quinn counted the
gauze-wrapped shapes. Seven. All lying still and silent,
looking...

"Are they paralyzed now?"

"No," Dr. Emerson said. "Just resting.
They sleep a lot. There's not much else they can do. Their scarring
is so extensive that they can't move on their own. But for four of
them the therapists need the skeletal muscle paralysis that 9574
offers. Those four are brain damaged from their burns."

Quinn tore her eyes away from the ward
and looked at him.

"How...?"

"Anoxia. Either the smoke and heat of
the fire itself stole their air, or the shock that goes along with
such extensive third-degree burns robbed their brains of sufficient
blood flow for too long—either way, lack of oxygen damaged their
brains, permanently. All four are disoriented and confused; two are
frankly psychotic. The physical therapists would have to fight them
all the way without 9574. But with 9574 they can work those limbs
and keep the muscles from complete atrophy."

Quinn stared back into the ward and
her heart went out to them. "Those poor, poor people." And then a
thought struck her. "But even if Dr. Alston's grafts repair their
skin, they'll never get any benefit from it."

"True. Their bodies may improve but
not their brains. However, their lives will not be wasted. Other
burn patients will reap the benefits of what we learn from these
poor devils' tragedies." He put a hand gently on her elbow. "But
enough philosophizing. It's time to drag you down and introduce you
to the more mundane aspects of the daily grind that is medical
research. The nitty gritty of gathering raw data, sorting and
analyzing it, and organizing it seven hundred different ways in
order to satisfy the bureaucrats at the FDA."

*

That's the trouble with Women's
Country, Louis Verran thought as he waited outside the dorm and
watched the windows of the south wing's second floor. Too much of a
class mix.

Women's Country. Sounded so uppity.
The kind of name his ex-wife would have been into after her
conversion. Elizabeth, the born-again feminist. She took to the
women's movement like a convert to a new religion. Took him to the
cleaners, then took off. Good riddance.

Woman's Country? Broads' Country was
more like it.

It had been Alston's bright idea—not a
bad one, really—to room each class as a unit, generally one class
per floor per wing, allowing them to work out study groups, make
friends, and generally build a sense of camaraderie. The third- and
fourth-year students were out more than they were in due to their
clinical training schedules at the medical center, but first- and
second-year wing floors went to class together, attended labs
together, and ate together. One quick look at the class schedule
told you when a certain wing would be deserted.

But Women's Country was different. The
broads had formed an enclave of first-, second-, third- and
fourth-year students there, which made it almost impossible to find
a time when everybody was out.

Except dinner time. Hardly anybody on
campus missed dinner.

This was Verran's third trip over here
today. On both his previous ones he'd found girls wandering about.
This time the place would be empty. Had to be. He did not want to
come back again.

He had his walkie-talkie on his hip
and Kurt watching the elevators over at Science, ready to let him
know as soon as the Cleary girl left the building. She'd probably
go straight to the caf but Verran was not taking any chances. As
soon as he got word that she was leaving Science, he'd be outta
here.

Watching the dorm door, he saw a
couple more of the broads leave and decided to make his
move.

The hallway in Broads' Country looked
deserted. He checked the walkie-talkie to make sure it was on. No
word from Kurt, so that meant the Cleary girl was still up on
Fifth. He checked up and down the hall to make sure no one could
see him, then used the master key to let himself into
252.

He was glad he didn't have to turn on
the lights. You never knew who might notice. He had his flashlight
and the sunset was glowing through the window of the bedroom, where
the problem mike was located. Plenty of light.

*

Quinn looked up from the computer
screen at her new work station and glanced at the clock. Dinner
time already. Time to hang it up.

She rubbed her eyes. Dr. Emerson
hadn't exaggerated about how mundane the nitty gritty would be.
Alice had set her in front of a computer, shown her how the
data-entry end of the program worked, then she'd given her a ream
of readings from the analytical lab next door and set her to
work.

Not the least bit exciting, and hardly
medical or even scientific. Nothing more than keyboard pounding.
She'd been discouraged at first, but Dr. Emerson had forewarned her
that this sort of scut work would be part of her duties, and that
this was a good way to get herself familiarized with the doings in
his little department. Once the data entry was caught up, he would
involve her in the analysis of that data and, if all went well, she
might even earn herself a credit on one or two of the scientific
articles these mountains of numbers were going to
generate.

Dr. Emerson had left the department a
little while ago and Alice now was on her way out. She showed Quinn
how to do a final SAVE on her work and sign off her console. She
left while Quinn straightened up her work area. When she had
everything looking reasonably neat, she headed for the
elevator.

On her way down the hall she noticed
that the curtains were drawn across the Ward C window. She was
almost glad she didn't have to see those poor souls
again.

When she got to the
elevators she saw that the floor indicator showed both cars on the
lobby level. There was a slot next to the call button. She slipped
her card in and pressed the button a couple of times, but neither
light moved off its
L
. She noticed the EXIT sign over the stairway door a short
way down the hall.

Why not? She'd spent most of the day
sitting in lecture halls, perched over her microscope, or in front
of that computer. Her legs could use a good stretch.

At the door she found a little red
light and a card slot in the lock assembly. She plugged in the
card, the light turned green, and the door opened. She noticed a
similar assembly on the other side. Seemed you couldn't get on or
off the fifth floor unless you had a card. Seemed a little
excessive. God, what if there was a fire?

A few minutes of bounding down the
flights and she reached the first floor. The stair door opened into
a hall around a corner from the lobby. She started to round that
corner when she noticed the red steel door of a side exit. Going
out this end, she realized, would save her a lot of steps. But as
she approached it she saw the standard warnings:

THIS IS NOT AN EXIT

ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED

But she also noticed a familiar slot
in the door's lock assembly, identical to the one on the fifth
floor door. The little light was red. Quinn wondered...

She stepped up and slipped her
security card into the slot. The lock clicked and the light turned
green.

She grinned. "Yes!"

She let herself out and saw another
slot and indicator lamp on the outside. She could enter here as
well as exit. All right. Her little key card was going to come in
very handy, especially in bad weather.

She turned and paused for a moment in
the mild October air to take in the orange glow of the sunset.
Beautiful. She was hungry but she felt grubby. She decided to made
a quick trip back to the room to freshen up before
dinner.

It would take only a couple of
minutes.

*

Verran palmed the defective Electret
mike and withdrew its replacement from his coat pocket; he stuck
the new one's pin into the same hole in the insulation of the wire
just occupied by its predecessor.

"Piece of cake," he said
softly.

He was checking the bedroom to make
sure it looked untouched when he heard a rustle in the hall on the
far side of the door. He froze. Who the hell—?

And then he heard the key slipping
into the lock. He dove for the floor on the far side of the bed
near the window and lay there, holding his breath, sweating. The
door opened and the light came on in the front room. Then the
overhead in the bedroom. Its glare hit him like a kick in the head.
He winced.